Article - Americans Abroad Part Six - WTA Players in Asia/Australasia

Varvara Lepchenko has a poor record in Asia/Australasia in the past two years, winning rarely and never winning as an underdog...

In this sixth part of a 7-part series of articles, I
continue to look at how American players fare abroad.

I’ve split this analysis into a number of categories –
US male players in the top 150 playing non-US/Canadian main draw ATP events
only (split into European and Asian/Australasian events), South American
players with any rank playing European Challengers (this research area was
specifically suggested) and US female players in the top 150 playing
non-US/Canadian main draw WTA events (split into European and
Asian/Australasian events).

In the previous articles, we’ve already seen that
American players in the ATP have a generally terrible record abroad, both in
Europe and Asia/Australasia, but on the WTA tour the players excellent in
Europe, particularly those of a higher rank.

For clarity, my policy on retirements here was void
them if the first set wasn’t completed, and I’m using Pinnacle Sports starting
prices for my analysis.

There are currently 16 US players in the WTA top 150
with Serena Williams – ranked 1 – unsurprisingly leading the pack. Only her
and Sloane Stephens are currently ranked inside the top 20 in the world, with
Jamie Hampton, Madison Keys, Venus Williams and Bethanie Mattek-Sands also
joining them in the top 50.

The first statement I need to make regarding these
figures is that the results are severely influenced by Sloane Stephens’ victory
over fellow US player Serena Williams (SP 19.27) at the Australian Open.

Should this match be discounted from the analysis, the
2013 results drop to £836 profit with an ROI of 8.44%, and the overall combined
results drop to -£499 profit (ROI of -3.30%).

Having said that, there is no doubt that the bigger
sample size of 2013 has produced some more impressive results for US WTA
players in Asia than the smaller 2012 sample.
Overall sample size is a fair bit smaller than the European results.

Some overall 2012/2013 stats which may be of interest, for US
players overall:-

Looking at the above profit and loss statements, it’s
clear to see that WTA players have no problem playing abroad whatsoever, and
have had some very impressive results, including several finals this year from
various players. Even when discounting the Stephens v Williams upset, there was
an ROI of 8.76% generated from a decent sample of 440 matches.

This is in extreme contrast to the ATP results. The men have almost a 20% decrease in their
win percentage, and the ROI of -19.87% is shocking. As discussed in previous articles, there can
be no real alternative but to pretty much blanket lay all American ATP players
when playing abroad, based on these stats.

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